


mapping stars with you (two-three years later)

by feldie



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, Lesbians in Space, One Shot, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24545920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feldie/pseuds/feldie
Summary: Catra and Adora start to bring magic back to the universe, and have some adventures—and an anniversary—along the way.(Adora and Catra alternating as POV character!)
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 185





	mapping stars with you (two-three years later)

Adora lets She-Ra’s magic in, and transforms.

“For the honor of Grayskull!”

Her body turns to gold, then ripples with more colors than Adora has names for. Magic fills her from head to toe, shimmering as it changes her. It makes her stronger, broadens her bones and muscles, clothes her in She-Ra’s gold and white. Her sword is in her hand, so much lighter now than it is when she’s just Adora. Light surrounds her in a halo of pale blue, the same color her eyes are when she’s She-Ra.

Adora takes a breath, and it’s over.

“Hey, She-Ra,” Catra says from beside her, dressed in her space suit, though her helmet is off and tucked under one arm. Catra cranes her head back to overcome the significant height difference between them now so she can look at Adora, her tail swishing. “Think you’re ready for this?”

Adora nods with a confidence she doesn’t feel. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Catra narrows her eyes. “Because we’re on a dead alien planet, and you’re gonna try to give it back its magic. Kind of a lofty goal, if I’m being honest.”

Nerves flutter in the base of Adora’s stomach and travel into her hands, which she refuses to let shake the way they want to.

“It’s kind of perfect, though.” Catra puts a hand to her forehead and stares out over the barren, brown dust that makes up the entire planet. The sun is a swollen, red half circle against the horizon, and the air swelters with heat. “No one’s here if things go wrong, right? I mean, this planet looks pretty dead.”

Adora still isn’t sure how she _knows_ this place used to have magic. After she and Catra left Etheria the night of their wedding, a pull in her heart started humming through her blood and wouldn’t let her rest until they spent four months crossing the universe, and only went quiet after they arrived less than a day ago. But even if she isn’t sure _how_ she knows, Adora feels it in every part of her—the planet’s magic was stolen a long time ago, and it’s her responsibility to give it back.

This is why her and Catra came so far, across uncounted miles of empty space burning bright with stars and planets.

“I’m sure,” Adora says.

Catra smirks. “If you say so, princess.”

“I’m your _wife_ ,” Adora reminds her, and a little thrill goes through her at the word.

“Still a princess.” Catra crosses her arms. “You gonna try and fix this place or not?”

“Can you be quiet?” Adora looks at Catra from the corner of her eye. “I’m trying to do magic here.”

Catra smirks again, but takes a few steps back. “Don’t let me get in your way, then.”

Adora narrows her eyes, then takes a breath to center herself. She sinks into memories, back to the minutes after she emerged from the Heart, her entire body on fire with the magic of She-Ra, how she took so much killing metal and barren rock and made it into something alive.

But can she do it again? Without Etheria at stake or her friends’ lives hanging in the balance? All the way here, she just… assumed the magic would work, but now, she isn’t sure.

Adora settles her feet shoulder-width apart, and takes her sword in both her hands, because she has to try. This is her responsibility, _She-Ra’s_ responsibility.

Adora raises her sword, pointed down at the ground. Magic hums faster in her blood, somehow sensing what she’s going to try to do. As if it knows it used to belong to this place, and wants to go home again.

With a shout, Adora brings down the sword.

Its point stabs into the barren dirt of the planet, finds purchase, and holds on.

Magic explodes outward from the sword in a golden ring, racing across the planet.

No flowers or grass or trees appear, though, like the ones that covered Etheria when Adora did this last time. The ground ripples with magic, soaking it in like dirt that hasn’t seen water in centuries. The pull in Adora’s chest, which was quiet since they arrived, roars to life again. She feels it in the center of her chest, and the magic inside her races toward it like a drain, funneling from She-Ra, through Adora, and into the planet that wants to drink from her until she’s dry.

Adora gasps, going to her knees as the magic rips its way free of her, claimed by the planet who hasn’t tasted power in so long.

“Adora?” Catra’s voice is distant, panicked. “Adora!”

Adora forces her head up from how it bows over the ground. “It’s okay. I have this.”

But the planet is taking too much, and Adora— _She-Ra_ —doesn’t have enough to give.

Adora’s vision flickers black at the edges as the pull in her chest threatens to rip her apart. Every breath shudders and shakes, and her grip on her sword is loosening with each heartbeat. She has to transform back into herself, she has to cut the planet off from She-Ra’s power so it doesn’t kill her before she can fix it.

This is what Adora thought she was supposed to do. This is what she _wanted_ to do.

But she can’t.

Adora remembers what she said to Catra more than two years ago in the Heart: _I’ve failed._ Because it’s finally true, and she has.

Adora looks at Catra, who’s watching Adora with a mixture of concern, awe, and, more than anything else, love.

“I—I can’t do it,” Adora gasps as the planet keeps _taking_ from her. “I _can’t_.”

“Look,” Catra whispers. “You already are.”

Adora forces herself to look past the person she loves more than anything, to where tender, new plants are poking out from soil that hasn’t known life in so long. To where the sun isn’t red and angry anymore, but a brilliant gold with a sky the color of She-Ra’s eyes surrounding it.

Then Adora remembers.

She wasn’t alone at the Heart when she thought she failed but didn’t—and she’s not alone here, either.

Catra’s with her. She has been for a long time, and she’s promised to be there for the rest of their lives.

“Come on, Adora.” Catra kneels in front of her, and covers Adora’s hands with her own around the sword’s handle. “You don’t know how to fail.”

Adora’s heart turns to fire. For so long, she thought She-Ra was separate from who _Adora_ is, that she wasn’t part of the magic herself. But Adora knows better now. She-Ra is magic, but she’s also the love in Adora’s chest, the bravery Adora feels when people she loves are close. She’s a kiss in the heart of a planet after it seems like she’s failed, when in truth, everything has barely begun.

Adora lets the magic in, and there’s no end to how much she can hold.

Then she gives it all back—and the planet blooms.

***

Catra watches a whole planet celebrate.

It’s the fourth one she’s visited with Adora, a month and half after the first. This one is covered in red-gold deserts sliced apart with canyons like knife cuts. The cities here are built along the canyon walls, and where there used to be only stone inside the canyons, Adora brought the planet’s rivers back. Their waters are turquoise, sparkling with magic—magic that powers their cities and makes the fruit trees glow like they have stars tucked inside their bark.

Everything glows, because Adora is here, and she’s brought magic with her.

The planet’s people remind her of Rogelio, standing on two legs with thick scales, tails, snouts, and crests down their spines. Everyone is friendly enough, even though neither Catra nor Adora can understand anything anyone says. They make glowing fruit juice and share it with everyone nearby, roast silver-scaled fish over fires, or snarl in what Catra assumes are songs, but she isn’t quite sure. Either way, they sound happy. They tuck flowers behind Adora’s ears, and Catra even lets them.

So much happiness, all because of Adora.

Catra knows the feeling.

So she’s content to sit back and enjoy watching Adora try to talk to a kid who’s making expansive motions with their clawed hands and a series of high-pitched growls. Adora’s flushed with the planet’s heat, the flowers behind her ears enormous and colorful. She’s laughing, at ease, and Catra thinks she catches the glow of magic in the backs of Adora’s eyes when Adora glances over at her.

Adora raises an eyebrow, silently asking if Catra wants company, but Catra waves her off, wanting Adora to enjoy her night however she wants to. When someone comes over to Catra and hands her a hollow stone filled with luminescent fruit juice, she thanks them and smiles, hoping they understand. They growl a response, pat her between the ears with a startling familiarity, and lope away.

Catra blinks in surprise at the touch, and how she didn’t feel a need to flinch away from it. She sips the juice that stains her lips, and is tart and sweet and somehow tastes like summer, and decides she wants to be a part of the night.

A little unsure, she makes her way over to the edge of a fire surrounded by singing people and hovers there. They growl and snarl, but if Catra listens hard enough, she can hear a rough rhythm to it. One of them meets her eyes, and gestures for her to join them.

So she does, and they fold her into their song, bumping her shoulders with theirs in time with whatever they’re saying. Accepting her, because she came here with Adora, and that’s enough for them. But it’s also because she helped Adora—helped her be where they are, giving back to the universe the only way they know how.

She’s ready to keep helping, if she can.

Catra might not be magic, but maybe, she can be kind—if she _acts_ kind, that’s what she is.

Adora finds her near dawn, when the light from the planet’s two orange suns starts to spill over the horizon. Catra is around a dying fire, listening to the songs that haven’t stopped since the suns went down, sipping the juice she had far too much of, her feet kicked out carelessly toward the coals, all of her warm and content.

“You seem like you had fun,” Adora says.

“I did.” Catra offers Adora a sip of her juice. “But I think I’m ready for another adventure.”

When Adora takes a drink, her lips glow pale blue, and Catra can’t resist the urge to lean forward and kiss it all off. Adora melts against her mouth, hand going to Catra’s face, holding her jaw like she has a thousand times before, but every time it still feels new to Catra.

“What was that for?” Adora asks with a dopey smile.

“Oh, nothing.” Catra kisses Adora’s nose. “Just because I love you.”

Catra used to want to be the best at so many things—being a villain, a leader, a force that dared people to get in her way. Now, all she wants is to be the best at being a friend, and being with Adora. She’s learned so much already, but still wants to know more.

“I love you, too,” Adora says.

Catra thinks, if she tries hard enough, she can be whatever she wants.

***

Adora learns how to read a planet’s echoes.

She knows how much magic it needs before it’ll come back to life, how much it will take from her before it doesn’t need her to restart its heart anymore. But Adora isn’t afraid of how much magic anywhere needs—whenever she feels like she isn’t enough, all she has to do is look at Catra, and remember she’s not alone, and won’t be again. All she has to do is remember this is what she wants.

So Adora knows this planet only needs a spark. She doesn’t even need to become She-Ra to know that.

Catra walks beside her on the ninth planet they’ve visited, ten months after they left Etheria. It’s after dark, and the stars shine down from overhead onto a million faceted crystals colored in every shade of pink and purple and red. Adora knows she should be admiring the brand new world around her, whose heart she’ll restart soon, but she can’t help but look at the lights overhead that remind her of her friends.

She misses them. Misses their voices, and their warmth, and the way they smile. She doesn’t know how long it’ll be until they’re together again, how long it’ll take until she and Catra find their way home. The universe is so big, and there are so many places that miss the magic only she can give back.

“You look like you’re thinking too much,” Catra says from inside her spacesuit—the air isn’t breathable here.

“Mm.” Adora drags her eyes to the planet again, her gaze catching against a thousand jeweled edges. “Wondering about how much left there is to do.”

Catra bumps Adora’s shoulder with hers. “Guess you better get started then.”

Adora centers herself around Catra’s voice, using it to anchor herself to the ground. “I think you just like to watch me transform.”

“I—I do not!”

“Look at your _blush_!”

“I am _not_ blushing!”

“You’re still cute in that spacesuit, you know.” Adora makes a motion near her head. “It’s the ears.”

“Will you fix this place already?”

Adora laughs, and Catra smirks at the sound.

“You’re such an idiot,” Catra says.

“Trying to fix a planet, here.”

Catra saunters close. “I’m sorry—am I distracting you?”

Adora takes Catra’s hand in hers. “In a good way, though.”

Catra squeezes her fingers. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Adora smiles, closes her eyes, and reaches—and She-Ra is waiting for her. She finds the love in her chest that burns so much brighter whenever Catra is close, and the patient love she has for the friends who wait for her, and the love that stretches across the universe whose magic she wants to give back.

Adora lets the light in, because it’s always loved her, too—and she transforms.

***

Catra follows the starlight.

She follows it until she finds Adora, who’s on the main deck, seated in the pilot’s chair, inputting a new course into Darla’s navigation system. At the other end of universe, somewhere in all the light they’ve been exploring, will be another planet for Adora to give magic back to.

But tonight isn’t about any of that—it’s about Adora, and about them both.

Tonight, Catra just wants their first anniversary to be special.

She wasn’t sure how to make anything special, though, so far from home. Wasn’t sure how to make a certain day feel _more_ than all the others—because surrounded by stars and magic and planets with names she doesn’t know, it feels hard to make anything small seem significant anymore.

But Catra is going to try, even if what little she’s managed to put together might not be enough to celebrate something that means so much. Something that means _everything_ to her.

“I have a surprise,” Catra blurts anxiously. She’s never done this before—why did she think she could?

Adora doesn’t look up from the navigation panel. “A surprise?”

“Yeah, so… surprise?” Catra’s tail flicks back and forth, ears flatten involuntarily—does Adora even remember what day it is?

Adora finally looks up, blinking, smiling a little. “Are _you_ my surprise?”

“No!”

“You’re a very nice surprise, Catra.”

Catra’s flushes. “Just—just come with me, okay?”

Adora follows her to the bedroom they’ve made their own, gasping at everything Catra’s done.

The lights are low, dimmed to soft shades of purple that blink sporadically in the walls. Catra played with Darla’s systems for three days before she figured it all out—and made the best discovery of all. Behind the bed, on top of which Catra’s set up an entire meal and a present for Adora, there’s a viewport they didn’t know about. Catra figured out how to open it, and now they’ll be able to see the stars every night.

Catra knows Adora loves the stars, so even though they make her feel small sometimes, she can’t help but love them, too.

“This is all for me?” Adora asks, then kisses Catra’s cheek before she can answer.

Catra can’t help the way she blushes again. “Obviously.”

“Is there a _reason_?” Adora asks in a singsong voice.

“Of course there is.” Catra crosses her arms, turning to face Adora. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

Adora twirls a piece of her hair around one finger. “Forgot what?”

“You _did_. You forgot our anniversary!”

But Adora only pulls a silver ball out of her jacket pocket with a grin. “I definitely didn’t. Your surprise is nicer, though.”

“What’s that?” Catra can’t help her curiosity.

“It’s for you.”

Catra uncrosses her arms and takes it. It’s a silver ball, dense, like it’s made of metal. “I don’t get it.”

Adora reaches over and touches a hidden button on the side. The ball lights up with a soft chiming sound and spins out of Catra’s hand to bounce randomly around the room. Catra’s eyes can’t help but track it—she wants to chase it. The urge is almost overwhelming.

“Like it?” Adora asks.

“It’s okay.” Catra’s ears twitch as it jerks around the corner of the bed.

Adora’s voice is teasing. “Okay?”

“I might like it.”

Catra loves it.

“You can chase it, you know.”

“I—I don’t want to chase it!” But her tail twitches as it zooms back around the bed and bumps into Adora’s feet.

Adora picks it up and powers it down, so it becomes a simple silver ball again. “If you say so.”

“I do. I do say so.”

Catra’s going to chase it so much, later—when Adora isn’t around, of course.

Adora moves inside and stands in front of the viewport, staring out at the stars.

“Can’t believe we could’ve had this view for a year,” Catra says, going to stand beside her.

“Do you wonder what Bow and Glimmer are doing?” Adora asks suddenly. “What everyone’s doing without us?”

Catra looks toward a specific star in the sky, in the direction Adora has told her so many times leads back to Etheria. She remembers Glimmer kissing her cheek whenever Catra was unexpectedly kind, Bow’s steady support, Scorpia and Perfuma’s unending warmth, Melog understanding her feelings before she knows them herself. She remembers Bright Moon on the day they left it behind, everyone celebrating Catra and Adora’s love, which was so long in the making.

“I just—I hope they’re happy,” Catra says with an ache in her chest. “I hope they’re still waiting when we go home.”

Adora turns to look at her, forehead crinkling. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

Catra shrugs as the old anxiety rears up in her. “People leave sometimes.”

“Not them.” Adora shakes her head, and touches Catra’s jaw. “They promised. Like you and me do. They’ll be there, Catra, and they’ll be so happy to see you.”

“Do you want to see them, too?” Catra forces her fear away, because Adora is right. Her friends love her, and she loves them. They’ll be waiting in Bright Moon, and they’ll celebrate the same way they did a year ago, but this time, there won’t be any goodbyes.

“I have so much left to do,” Adora says. “The universe needs me.”

“Your friends need you,” Catra reminds her, because no matter what else Adora is, she’ll never be rid of the part of herself that wants to carry the entire universe on her shoulders. “I need you, too.”

Adora looks at her, and if the sky could be one color forever, Catra wants it to be the perfect gray-blue of Adora’s eyes.

“What do you want, Adora?” Catra asks.

“I want to go home,” Adora whispers. “But not yet.”

Catra puts her hands on Adora’s waist, and pulls her close. Their foreheads press together, and the heat of Adora’s breath warms Catra’s face. “So how about we give it another year? You can bring some more magic to the universe—but then we go home. Live our lives just for ourselves for a little while.”

“What would even _do_?”

“Anything we want.” Catra pauses, feeling the weight of her suggestion in the space between their mouths. “What do you think, princess?”

“I think I love that,” Adora says. “And I love you, too.”

One year.

They can wait one more year.

Then, all they have to do is follow their hearts home again.

Catra tries to look at the star that points in the direction of Etheria, but all its light leads back to Adora. She should’ve known wherever Adora is, light will be there, too, because it loves her like Catra does—enough to follow her across an entire universe.


End file.
